The world’s oldest, largest and most inclusive interfaith event, the Parliament of the World’s Religions, takes place this week from 15-19 October in Salt Lake, Utah, bringing together thousands of global and religious leaders, grassroots activists and practitioners, working for a more peaceful, just and sustainable world. The Global Initiative and Save the Children Sweden are at the Parliament, running an exhibition booth and a workshop on ending legalised violence of children, and launching our new resource, Ending corporal punishment of children – a handbook for working with religious communities.

This handbook is a revised, abridged version of “Ending corporal punishment of children – working with and within religious communities” (2011).  It provides links to tools and resources for engaging with and enlisting the support of religious communities and faith-based institutions towards the prohibition and elimination of corporal punishment of children. It recognises the crucial role that religious communities play and seeks to broaden their involvement as active partners in the global movement towards achieving children’s right to equal protection under the law.

The handbook is based on the premises that the major world religions profess respect for the inherent dignity of every person including children and that the universal principles of compassion, justice, equality and non-violence are central to religious teachings. It recognises that there are those who use their religious faith to justify violence against children and looks at ways of changing attitudes.

The handbook is available for download here.

A limited number of hard copies is available for advocacy purposes – email info@endcorporalpunishment.org.